


Ablutions

by Davechicken



Series: Prince of Omens - Egyptian AU [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 10:53:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20906468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: Egypt. An asp. An angel.A wish.





	Ablutions

**Author's Note:**

> For the very gorgeous Whiteley Foster's [Prince of Omens](https://whiteleyfoster.tumblr.com/tagged/prince-of-omens/chrono) AU!

Aziraphale is here to watch over the children of God. Which is still a little strange to him. He knows the other Humans here worship false gods, but he sees the little children of Israel play alongside the little children of Ra, and he knows that She favours Hers over them. 

They’re still sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. 

But it will all be fine in the End, he knows. 

He also knows that whatever caused them to be enslaved is part of the Plan, too. Some lesson, or some… some reason he’s not divine enough to comprehend. Even if it, at times, feels unfair to punish the innocent children for the sins of their many generations ago predecessors. 

But his is not to reason why.

The children of all ages do not need his watchful gaze all the time, and that means he can occasionally rest. Rest, and sit beside the Nile, feeling the light breeze tug at the edge of his tunic. He can hear the cattle lowing just out of sight, and he relaxes with his hands holding his light recline supported.

He hears the serpent before he sees him. Cra-- _Crowley_ \- can be silent when he wants to be, but he allows the golden bangles that adorn his wrists and ankles to chime and announce his approach. It’s become an unspoken ritual by now, with the angel keeping watch over one additional charge. The first time he’d come across him bathing, he’d startled the demon and sent him scuttering into a defensive hiss. But with time, he’d grown to tolerate - maybe even appreciate - Aziraphale’s presence. He doesn’t know if Crowley understands that he’s keeping watch for him, and he won’t ask. He likes to think the demon knows.

Graceful feet slink through the reeds to the river’s bank, glints of golden adornments that bring out the glow of his eyes. He never approaches a destination head-on, weaving like the reeds making baskets. Either it’s a defensive mechanism - making him harder to target - or his inner, serpentine nature leaking through to this form. He is seen more in the ripples of his passing than his actual shape until he reaches the edge, and then his bright self is impossible to deny.

Amongst these dirt-dusted people, their skin golden and ebony, he is a flash of mica-streaked marble. Here, more so than anywhere, he’s allowed himself to flourish without the cocoon of textiles they both usually prefer. Aziraphale isn’t sure why, but he approves, all the same.

Long limbs fold down as he slips his feet from the thongs he wears. The skirt parts in his crouch, exposing a wiry-taut thigh. For some reason, that moment is always more intriguing. He’ll be naked in just a few seconds more, but the brief window where he’s skirting the edge of impropriety is… special. The Garden in reverse, finding the innocence of ignorance, finding the purity in the natural form. 

Crowley will not meet his eyes, through all of this. Permission to watch, perhaps, or maybe he’s still only allowing his bodyguard to guard, not be a part of his ritual ablutions. It hurts, bittersweet like the beer they brew, and he wouldn’t stop drinking even if he could.

The buckle on his skirt unfastens, and he rises from the puddle of fabrics like a victorious sun in the sky. Unblemished skin, dimpled only where his dusky nipples perk in anticipation. The jewels all stowed with his garments, and he steps into the cool water like it’s welcoming him home.

Aziraphale holds his breath as the demon submerges himself, disappearing beneath the surface and tugging the bloodspill of his hair from the blue of the Nile. He holds his breath in sympathy - not that either of them _need_ air - and feels the aching fear that he won’t return. He’ll use the currents to swim away, far away, and leave this skin behind. This life. This moment of time, where their paths have crossed for far longer than before. It thuds in his chest like a drumbeat of grief, and he chides himself for his obsession as he does every time.

Crowley is the enemy. He was once an angel, but he is now the enemy. He is supposed to off-set him. Thwart him. Protect the Humans from him, and not the other way around.

Only… Pharaoh seems to do more harm to other Humans than the demon has, recently. Unless he’s been blinded by Crowley’s wiles. He keeps himself to himself, accepting the respectful reverence they offer, not using it to improve his lot. He’s pretty sure that Crowley didn’t even declare himself one of their pantheon, just took advantage when they offered him the spot. 

It’s difficult to hate him, and even then… should he? Should he hate anyone, or anything? Surely it should be love. Love, and a hope that one day things will improve. He will improve. Forgiveness is Her gift, and although Aziraphale cannot open Heaven’s gates, he can open his own. 

Foolish thinking. His door is never locked, but the demon would never darken it. Would never accept an angel’s home as his own, not even come to visit. He’d suspect some trick, or he’d be forced to play one of his own. You didn’t go around… socialising with the enemy. It just wasn’t… right.

Crowley chooses this moment in his reverie to rise, his hair falling behind his shoulders like a cloak of wet flames. His eyes are bare, and the heady perfume of cloves and oils is washed from his skin. He’s as naked as the day they were all created, and only the thin strips of his pupils over the fields of brushed gold tell of time and torment. 

For a moment, they meet. Maybe he forgot where the angel was, or… or…

The gaze turns, and Aziraphale… _burns_. Crowley’s facing away from him, pulling handfuls of water up to rub and scrub himself clean, and all the angel sees is the firm, twin moons of his rump beneath the auburn waterfall.

Somehow, that’s worse than seeing his sex full on. Without the genitals he knows he has, he can imagine they aren’t flaccid and disinterested. Can imagine the hands are holding heavy, aching balls. Stroking a firm and skyward-saluting shaft. Can imagine he is showing that slip of his cheeks in an invitation for Aziraphale to join him. Wade into the waters, and press against his back. Reach around to feel his longing, and press his own against his ass. 

Would he? Would he respond, if Aziraphale were brave enough? Would he part his legs in welcome? The oil he uses on his skin would work to ease him inside. Maybe he’d get him onto dry land, and mount him like a beast of the field. Push him onto all fours, and sheathe his sword into his hole. Plough him over and over, fill him with his seed and kiss his nape as he feels him follow him, spilling over his fist. Would he? Would he cry out loudly, or would the only sounds be their flesh and the gasps of breath they could neither of them restrain? Would he beg for hands in his hair, bowing him backwards like a strung weapon taking the arrow shaft?

It’s foolish. Foolish and… frivolous. He chalks it down to being in this body too long, and nothing more. It has a will of its own, and it… it… can’t. He can’t. They can’t.

They can’t.

He knows.

The demon starts to walk away, back to his clothes and golden bands that lock him forever from Aziraphale’s touch. The manacles might just as easily be about his own wrists, for all they chain him down.

Words catch in his throat, stuck on his fat tongue. Don’t go. Stay. Stay here. Stay with me. 

A million reasons why, and one why not.

Crowley stoops and swaddles himself away by degrees. The armour of respectability, on the edge of indecency. Most of him still bare for the world to see, and his long fingers capture his hair and tame it just enough to be controlled. Aziraphale longs to run his fingers through it, to tug and pull and tangle. To make knots of promises, and to hold that throat back to watch it swallow.

But he does not.

Crowley dips his fingers into kohl, and draws fine circles around his eyes. It does nothing to dim the fire trapped in the amber, and ends like teardrops for a love that he grieves. 

Or so Aziraphale tells himself, as he watches him leave in silence. The chime of his bangles is silenced, now. There is nothing to mark his passing, and the sun will go down on another day where they are… 

Where he walks away.

One day, he thinks. One day he’ll be brave enough to ask him not to leave.

He won’t. He can’t.

But oh, how he wishes he could.


End file.
